January 19 - Market (1/19/13)

Where do you get your stuff? You know, all the things you need to live. Do you shop online? Do you go to the mall? Once a year or twice a week? Who decides what you buy? Do you choose? Really? Well, I know a little secret. Before you go to the store to choose your favorite "stuff," there are some extremely hard-working folks who sift through hundreds of thousands of items to present the best of the best for you to choose. It is a difficult decision for the buyers. They have to answer many questions like what sold well last year? What are the new trends? What do you want for heaven's sake??? Their job is to guess, and the best "guessers" make the most money! So no matter whether you are shopping for screwdrivers, tires, jewelry or chocolate, someone is "super-guessing" your choices.

That brings me to "market." An enormous event held in several large cities in the United States like Atlanta, Las Vegas and Dallas. It is international in scope and brings thousands of buyers from all over the world together to sift through the "stuff." I was privileged to attend the gift market with my cousin this week. She has a fantastic shop in Llano, Texas called "The Market: a Collection of Shops." Stop in there next time you go through Llano after you finish your Cooper's Barbecue dinner. You will not be disappointed. She has a lovely shop filled with thoughtful, beautiful, repurposed and practical gifts for yourself or others. I can't tell you how hard she and her partners work to bring you the best choices from the thousands upon thousands of choices.

I have been thinking about this all week. What choices do we have in how to live? Does someone sift through the choices for us? Do we have a buyer at the market of life helping eliminate the bad, poorly made or unsatisfactory selections? Do we have someone who has our best interests at heart? A someone who can assure us that the choices we make are all good if they come through His filter? You bet we do. Our heavenly Father cares so much about our choices in life that He gave His own Son's life so that we can live with Him in eternity. Wow! And His motives are not monetary. His motive is to spend eternity with us! Our joy for today is enhanced as we make our choices based on His wisdom and His care for us. Just imagine how blessed we are to choose the fellowship here on earth in wise choices filtered through the Eternal Buyer, Jesus Christ.

Everything we have is a gift from God. All good things are gifts from God (1 Timothy 6:17). Food and clothing (Matthew 6:25, 33), rain and fruitful harvests (Leviticus 26:4), faith (Ephesians 2:8), grace (James 4:6), wisdom (Proverbs 2:6, James 1:5), and life itself (Isaiah 42:5) are all gifts from God.

Pray:

Heavenly Father, help us to choose wisely as we pass through this life. Give us Your wisdom, guidance and protection in the path we choose to walk with You. Amen

January 18 - Seeds (1/18/13)

Seeds

Gardeners, (and you know who you are), what is one of the best things about January? Don't say ice storms, down time or frozen weeds, please. Say, seed catalogs! We avid gardeners look forward to this time of the year to relax a bit, and soak up the sun in the seed catalogs. Jackson & Perkins catalog day means a time to investigate the new plant varieties, enjoy green photos when the outside vista of my window is still brown grass. I love to admire new varieties of vegetables and imagine an okra plant that is 5 feet tall! Can my mind take in the notion of zinnias the size of my palm! Then, I dream of a tomato with a bright pinkish red hue and an acidic bite! That tomato variety is called "June Pink." June Pinks are so sought after that true tomato lovers save the seeds and start them in February…timing is everything in the world of seeds! So in cold, frozen, icy January the gardener dreams of June and sees beautiful gardens of the future! And Spring!!!

Now, carry this dream farther. Think of the mustard seed. Here is something I found out: of all the herb seeds in the world, the mustard seed is the smallest. If you are familiar with seeds (I'm sure most of you are bored by now, but humor me a little) you might know that most seeds correlate to the size of the final, grown plant. Radish seeds are tiny and so are the vegetable radishes. Corn seeds look like corn kernels and produce a plant that may have 5-6 ears of corn with hundreds of kernels on each cob. Think about an okra seed…the same size of the seeds you pull out of an okra kernel, yet each seed can produce an okra plant several feet tall, covered with okra pods. Tomato seeds look a little smaller than the seed you see in the tomato fruit. But not mustard seeds…they are itsy, bitsy, like grains of salt. And this is the amazing part: the mustard plant is the largest plant of all the herbs in the garden. It is large enough for birds to land on and to build a nest in! 

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches." Matthew 13:31-32

So don't feel sorry for the tiny mustard seed. Not only does it grow to be a huge plant, but the flavor is big, too. You could probably do a blind taste test and recognize its flavor. Mustard enhances everything. And it doesn't carry the down side of being "sugary" or sweet. There has never been a diet known to man that excludes mustard! No fat, no sugar, just flavor!

So how does this compare to our faith? What does the parable Jesus told mean? Our faith does not have to be huge. We do not have to be Moses or Billy Graham, Abraham or Ruth. We can be ourselves and still be listed on the wall of faith. It can be the size of the mustard seed and grow into a large gift to honor God. The seeds of our faith can grow and multiply to fill a field. A tiny faith can fill a room, a palate and a lifetime. 

Why would God present us with this dilemma, parable, mystery? Because our God is one of surprises, oddities, contradictions and miracles! Faith is a miracle! Can we explain it, dissect it, write a poem about it, sing about it, dream about it? Yes and no, it is faith. It defies definition. That is it! That is all we need to know. Believe! Claim the dusting of the mustard seed in your life! Then plant it and wait for the harvest!

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

Pray: Father, do not let our struggle to define faith keep us from living it every day. We claim the "mustard seed" of faith given to us to grow the giant plant of joyful living You promised. Amen

January 17 - What? Me, worry? (1/17/13)

The phrase attached to the face of Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman was classic 1960's sarcastic attitude. In the face of nuclear war, the youth of the era thumbed their noses at their parents' fears. If you remember any of this, you are officially "old!" Alfred was the poster boy for the worry-free attitude, freckle face mischief and all.

We live however in a world full of worry. Max Lucado says, "Some of us have a post graduate degrees from the University of Anxiety!" Worry connotes many things but for me it seems like this: it is a sack full of rocks slung over your back, a sky full of hail clouds when you just got a new roof, a car with a "funny" noise as you travel down a dark street far from home, or it is just getting lost. 

Today my cousin encouraged me with her easy-going outlook on getting lost…"we'll just turn around, find another way. No stress, no blame, no worry. We'll get there another way, see something new, change our plans a little and have fun on the way!" I really like that idea. Thank you, Mary, for reminding me that life is not always just the destination but what happens along the way. 

A carefree, not careless, attitude can make all the difference. Keeping your eyes open to the new and the different while traveling along is a blessing, too. Did it really matter that we took a different way? That we were really "lost?" We had a delightful time getting there and the destination turned out to be great, too. It was all in the attitude and refusing to worry.

That's what God wants us to do. Here is what He says:

"Do not worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need." Philippians 4:6

Pray: Thank you, Lord, for the journey and for the delightful encounters we have along the way. Amen